More of us now work from home
Posted Dec 7, 2010 04:03:57 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The number of Canadians working from home has edged up slightly over the past decade.
According to the latest survey from Statistics Canada, in 2008, just under 1.8 million employees worked at home. That’s compared with about 1.4 million in 2000. Employees working from home represented 11.2% of all paid employees in 2008, up from 10.2% eight years earlier.
The study follows closely on the heels of a national campaign calling for a “National Work from Home Day.”
That campaign was generated by online job site Workopolis, which says working from home has benefit for both employee and employer.
“Workers who have the option of working from home are more loyal to their job and their more satisfied with their work because they know their employers just trust them to get the job done and doesn’t need to be watching over them every minute,” says Peter Harris, content manager with Workopolis.
Harris also cites cost and time savings from not having to commute, plus the environmental benefits.
It was those benefits that attracted the attention of Nova Scotia Liberal MP Mike Savage, who stood up in the House of Commons last month to endorse a National Work From Home Day.
“Our changing economy needs to embrace the new ways of work, which also appreciate the social responsibility we have to our environment,” Savage said during Question Period.
In 2008, 54% of all employees who worked at home had a university degree, compared with 25% of those who never worked at home. Similarly, 55% of employees who worked at home at least occasionally were in professional or managerial jobs, compared with 23% of employees who did not work at home.
Of all employees, about 10% of women worked at home, slightly less than the 12% for men. Among professional employees, however, the gap between the sexes was wider: 29% of male professionals worked at home compared with 19% of female professionals in 2008.
The most common reason for working at home, cited by 25% of employees, was that it was a job requirement. The next most common reasons were that it provided better working conditions (23%) and that home was their usual place of work (18%).
